This essay attempts to explain power, responsibility, reputation, and courtesy in the context of long-distance communication-oriented relationships.
A draft of the first part of section four, “System 3”, was shared previously, on Awful. I’m open to feedback.
As always, no generative chatbots were used to generate text. I used vim and pandoc.
For any community I share this essay with, I think it’s useful to examine the power structure of that community as an example. Awful is an Autocracy which takes no particular protection against Sock Puppets or Celebrities. Some Influencers find themselves banned, but one of the structural purposes of the community is to funnel news tips towards one of the Autocrats, so most Celebrities find it easy enough to post with the flow as long as they stay on-topic. While there are some rituals, notably the excoriation of wrongthinkers, people aren’t actually being harmed here; Awful isn’t a Cult. This all sounds somewhat unstable, but there’s no desserts or underlying powers associated with Awful; there’s no Aristocracy and the Autocrats are both few in number and sincere in their radical beliefs, so no newcomer is especially motivated to take it over.